Administrative Deviance: Corruption, Nepotism and Maladministration

In one line

Administrative deviance is the general name for an official departing from the standard his office requires, and it takes three forms: taking a bribe, favouring his own, and simply administering badly.

In the words a student can write in an exam: administrative deviance means conduct by a public official which departs from the norms of his office. Its principal forms are corruption, the use of public office for private gain; nepotism and favouritism, the conferring of appointments or benefits on relatives or associates rather than on merit; and maladministration, which is bad administration falling short of illegality, comprising delay, incompetence, neglect, inattention, failure to follow procedure and unreasonable, unjust or oppressive action. The three call for different remedies: corruption for the criminal law, nepotism for the constitutional guarantee of equality and the discipline of merit based recruitment, and maladministration for the Ombudsman, the citizens' charter and the right to information, because no court can address it.

The three defined and distinguished

Corruption

The use of public office for private gain. Its forms include demanding or accepting a bribe, extortion under colour of office, misappropriation of public money or property, using inside information for gain, and criminal misconduct in the sense the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 gives to that phrase.

Its distinguishing feature is a private benefit obtained by the abuse of a public position. It is a criminal offence and is treated in [The Prevention of Corruption Act 1988].

Nepotism and favouritism

Nepotism is the favouring of relatives; the word comes from the Latin nepos, a nephew, and from the practice of popes appointing their nephews. Favouritism is the wider term, covering friends, caste, community, region and political affiliation.

Its distinguishing feature is that the criterion applied is a relationship rather than merit. Note that no money need change hands, which is why it is a distinct category and not a species of corruption.

Its primary remedy is constitutional, not criminal. Article 14 forbids arbitrary State action and Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment. An appointment made because of a relationship rather than on the prescribed criteria is an irrelevant consideration and is arbitrary: [Grounds of Judicial Review: Abuse of Discretion]. If the person deciding is himself related to the candidate, it is personal bias: [The Rule Against Bias].

Maladministration

Bad administration that is not illegality: delay, incompetence, ineptitude, neglect, failure to reply, failure to follow the department's own procedure, arbitrariness and rudeness.

The Maharashtra Lokayukta and Upa-Lokayuktas Act 1971 supplies a statutory definition, and quoting it is worth doing: maladministration means action taken or purporting to have been taken in the exercise of administrative functions in any case where the action, or the administrative procedure or practice governing it, is unreasonable, unjust, oppressive or improperly discriminatory, among other limbs: [Lokayukta in Maharashtra: the 1971 Act, and the 2023 Act awaiting commencement].